Name: Heather Robison: How to Build an Advisory Practice in a Small Town
Uploaded: 2025-11-20T15:19:00Z
Duration: 16 min 17 s
Description: The Bartlesville, Okla.-based financial advisor discusses how she built a practice with her mother and shares wealth planning strategies and tips to humanize client conversations.

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The Bartlesville, Okla.-based financial advisor discusses how she built a practice with her mother and shares wealth planning strategies and tips to humanize client conversations.

https://m.wsj.net/video/20251121/5c3c4f4e-cee7-49e2-9798-29e9b2357332/2/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Heather Robison: How to Build an Advisory Practice in a Small Town

Welcome to "Barron's Advisor, The Way Forward next generation", a special series spotlighting the emerging Leaders shaping the future of financial advice. Twice a month we'll be digging into the strategies, insights and game changing moves that will help you take your practice to the next level. I'm your host, Alyson Tucci, and today with me is Heather Robinson, all the way from Oklahoma, representing Four Stone Wealth Management. With about $460 million assets under management, We're gonna be talking about how you too can build your practice in a small town. Heather, thank you so much for coming in today.

Thank you for having me.

You tell me a little bit about your community and how it's really evolved over the past couple years.

Yeah, so I'm from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which is a small town northeast of Tulsa. We have about 30,000 population. Back in the '80's we were home of Phillips Petroleum Company through mergers and acquisitions and splits and spinoffs. Now we're basically the back office for ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66. So those are the two main employers besides the school and the hospital.

That's great.

Yeah.

I mean there's a lot of of advisors listening in that aren't from a big city. They're not from the New York, the LA's the world. So I'd love to dive into sort of the wealth base-

Sure.

And how you have really supported the community as it's grown. From my understanding, you've been working with your mom for quite some time.

I have been, yeah. So I started about a year outta college, kind of restarted my career, answering the phone. Started from the bottom up, learning the business and she got her background as a CPA. So she really started the business with her tax clients. And we do a lot of tax planning and investment management is, and retirement planning is basically what we do for our clients.

So you came into the business right out of college, worked with your mom. Talk to me about that relationship.

So I always say it's kind of a cliche, but it's kinda like marriage. The first year marriage is the hardest. So there was some probably some tears the first year, but it's been fantastic since. I think it's probably one thing we both could say we're most proud of. I think just with any relationship it's grown, it's developed and the apple hasn't fallen very far from the tree. So I think it made that transition really easy with clients 'cause they know that I think a lot like her and values are the same and you know, we're trying to do what's best for the client.

Can you give me an example of one of those transition conversations, how that looked, how you really set yourself apart from, you know, no longer being the kid, maybe that they looked you at and looked at you as the financial advisor. How did you make that transition?

That's a really good question. I think the simple answer is just time and just like with anything, you kind of build that trust over time. I mean, to be quite honest, I am a pretty shy person. So I can remember the early years like just sitting in the room taking notes and barely said a word. But slowly and over transitioning, like mom would be like, okay, Heather's gonna talk about this part now and maybe I'd talk about the capital markets and just slowly developing that relationship with the client and slowly, you know, life happens with Mom and she's not able to work as much. And so it just has really been a gradual thing. But it's been great and it's worked out really well.

Any pieces of advice that you'd provide? There's a lot of women that come into this industry through either their parents, any advice that you would give them and for individuals maybe taking over that practice?

I mean, I think just be yourself. I mean there's so many different ways to do this business and leverage what you're good at. She's a CPA, she had 30 years of experience in doing tax planning before I came in. I'm good at communication, I'm good with the client and that's where I excel. And I know coming up from answering the phone, you know, I know every aspect of the business where she doesn't, right? She just knows higher level and I can kind of get into this is why we wanna do it this way 'cause I can maybe understand a little bit better on the operation side.

For the advisors that I may be thinking about. I've heard tax planning, I have a partner in tax planning. Talk to me a little bit about really the synergies that develop between the tax management and the wealth management and why that's been so successful for you.

Well for us, it kind of goes hand in hand. If you're, you know, gonna manage somebody's money, saving them on taxes and planning for taxes is a huge part of it. I think it's one of those extras that really helps your client tell the story to their friend or their family. Like, hey, you know, well did, did you know that Heather did this for me? You know, I don't have to worry about it. It's just one less thing that they have to worry about. To me it's hard to have the conversation about wealth management without managing taxes. It's such a huge part. Many retirees have IRAs. I mean you're gonna have the discussion, how much of that do you need to withhold to pay tax? And you again, getting to know your client, those that are philanthropic, why not have us write the check right out out of your IRA and go to the qualified charitable distribution that's not taxable. Oh I didn't know I could do that.

Exactly.

You know, just reminding them that there are ways that, you know, we can help you save money and then that money works more for them and for the things that they care about.

Any other examples that maybe an advisor listening right now could go oh, that's a use case?

Yeah.

For getting closer to the tax side of the business?

I think so. I think again, keeping that communication open, you can go through more complex strategies. In our case with a lot of retirees from Conoco and Phillips, they have a lot of low basis stock. Oh did you know that you can roll that out or distribute that out after 55 and a half to a brokerage account and it's one of those tax, rare tax breaks where if you do that it's called net unrealized depreciation. Now you're getting complicated and their eyes get glazed over. But if you can simplify it and say, and if you're gonna make that donation to the church anyways, why don't you do it this way and then let us transfer this stock directly to that charity so you don't pay capital gains. You're really, I mean that's what net unrealized depreciation is. That difference between your cost basis when you distribute it out and the fair market value when you sell it. If you don't sell it, you just saved a lot of money in taxes that they didn't even know was possible. Until you have that conversation and maybe you don't know unless you, you ask the client, you know, what are your goals? Where are you spending money?

What are those questions that you ask to make sure that you're getting to the right level of conversation and figuring out what they need for their next level of either growth or turn up distribution or what have you?

I mean a lot of the conversation is gonna be a lot of open-ended questions. That's where you're really gonna get to know how they feel about things or how they reacted to different market cycles. And you are gonna have to ask really like the questions on the retirement plan questionnaire to really get more of those details. So it's a mixture of both. And I think if you find, if you're having that conversation with the client too and you can use examples of, you know, this is how I've done it, even for my family and those kinds of things and you know, just keeping that communication going and once they trust you, I think they're more willing to kind of open up about those wishes and those concerns and those kinds of things.

So for advisors who may be in a similar situation, they're in a small town or they have a cohort of their client base that is quite similar in one manner, whether they're scientists, whether they're from the same corporation, is there some specific way that you would go about providing advice to those people that you could figure out pathways and assist them?

Yeah, so we do have a cohort of like scientists and engineers that really you've gotta earn your keep with them 'cause they will go back and like create their own spreadsheet to double check. You know, and that's okay, that makes us better at our job, I think. So with those clients, I know they're gonna have those kinds of questions. So I'm gonna have more support, I'm gonna have more charts, I'm gonna have more why's, versus maybe, you know, a client that you just know doesn't really care about that and they're gonna gloss over on that. So I'm gonna concentrate more on getting to know them and getting to know their wishes and wants and concerns and really just go over, remember when we did your retirement plan and you said you were gonna spend this much and we assumed a forward looking, your return of 6%, you know, average rate return. Look at what you've been able to do. And I'll kind of make the meeting more about where they are and more goal focused versus just the hard data that I know some of the clients wanna see that.

Any sort of unique financial challenges that they might be facing, being from a town that a large corporation, you know, left and there could be changes in pension, could be changes in lingering impacts.

You know what, right now I have been getting calls because one of the corporations has announced a 20% reduction in workforce. And sadly it does seem like that kind of announcement happens every three to five years. So, I mean it's definitely challenging. You're gonna be that person they call. I mean just, you know, honestly life happens and sometimes it does open a better door on the other end. I just had somebody come in, they are able to what they call an expression of interest. So he may get like 27 weeks of severance and he's already got another job lined up that pays more. So, you know, sometimes I feel like our job, we're being more of a counselor than we are being their wealth manager. So it's, and I think that's what's so rewarding about this job because it's like you're gonna be okay. There is light at the end of the tunnel that may actually be better for you in the long run. Change is hard. Nobody likes change, but this is how, you know, this was our plan before, here's plan B and plan B's pretty good too.

We sometimes speak a different language in financial services and trying to humanize it for our clients is really important.

Are there some sort of ways that are easier versus others in trying to humanize those conversations? Is it just making it practical and talking through each of those items or are there certain tips and tricks?

I think for me, what I will do sometimes too when you're, you're just kind of developing the investment policy statement and they're talking about maybe how they've invested in the past. I'll repeat back to them, okay, this is what I hear you saying. Or if they say I am, you know, I'm low risk. Or actually probably a better example would be I'm low risk and then I see their portfolio and they own one stock and it's all their company stock. I'll explain to them that's actually a high concentration. I would, I consider that very high risk. So you know, you do just have to maybe kind of just tell them this is what this means to me and then ask them, what does this word mean to you? And we can kinda get back on the same page.

Walk me through how you would sort of approach that client.

What I probably would do would start with a retirement plan. And the retirement plan is gonna show you if that company has bad news and has a big drawdown, how much it impacts their retirement goal. So, and I think that that helps simplify things too and it helps show them if we get to this kind of portfolio, now we're looking at a smoother ride. And I go through the fact that, you know, we don't know when the next recession's gonna happen. That's what really blows up or could blow up your retirement plan, 'cause it can take, and we've seen it with these two companies stock, it can take five years for them to recover. So you know what's more important, getting that top stock price or protecting on the downside. And then we just start maybe jotting down some price targets and maybe that means today we do sell some and diversify some and then at the next price target we do another third. But we come up with a goal to get to that end point in a certain amount of time.

Do you look at private markets? Do you look at alternatives? Do you look at, you know, insurance and other aspects to round it out? How do you think of really that plan?

Yeah, good question. We really do keep it simple. I mean the most complicated thing that we would do maybe is a covered call.

Okay.

'Cause again, it does get them towards selling. In the meantime they get that extra premium income. So I mean that's mostly what we do it. I know there's a lot of different ways to do it, but I have found that a client is gonna stick with their plan and not make a stupid, emotional decision if they understand, you know, what they own, what they're doing. If it gets too complicated, I don't know. That's just not our client base for the most part. I have a few that more complicated strategies would work, but most it's not going to work for us.

Just keep it simple and then it's able to be explained.

Yes.

It's able to have those conversations and that's really interesting 'cause you're probably having those intergenerationally as well, as you're having those conversations with the parents and the children, how are those family meetings? Especially with those situations where you have a concentrated stock position where maybe that next generation is nervous about their parents?

Yeah, they could be. But we've used it as opportunities for the next generation too, right? It's like, you could sell this and pay your capital gains rate, or you've got little Susie going to college next year, why not gift it to her and let her sell it for that tuition payment in a lower tax bracket. So it, and it's a good way to bring in the next generation. And already at 18 maybe you've already built that bridge to the next generation.

For an advisor that is looking out to build their business organically, it seems like you've unlocked the code.

Hmm. I don't know about that.

What sort of suggestions would you provide them?

I think, again, it's so simple, but it does really take time and it's just doing the right thing all the time. Sometimes that means you're gonna give away advice without getting paid for it. But in my experience it does come back tenfold and it again, it goes back to, well, it's almost like you're building a friendship. And so, you know, they're like, they're happy to tell their friends or their family about what you or your firm did for them in ways that maybe they're not gonna get from doing it themselves or you know, those kinds of things.

Well Heather, thank you so much for coming here to New York today. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome. Thank you.